Tasks as npm modules that can be required and run independent of any task runner (if you want to manually build a compliant config object to execute it). Can pipe data between multiple tasks (think coffeescript transpilation + uglify in a single step). All task output emitted as events.

A library for parsing configurations (merge options, template expansion, glob expansion (using lib from item #2) from the current Gruntfile format, into a valid form for running node-task compliant modules. Will support user-defined middleware for controlling config output.

A task runner which uses config parsing library from item #3 to execute node-task compatible modules (can be used programmatically, or via cli). Supports defining "alias" tasks which compile a set of tasks which can be run in parallel See: https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt